According to an international NGO, Uganda’s LGBTQ community is now facing increased persecution as a result of the passage of severe anti-gay laws two years ago.
Since the passage of the 2023 law, Human Rights Watch (HRW) claimed that Ugandan authorities have “perpetrated widespread discrimination and violence” and “spread misinformation and hatred against LGBT people.”
Consensual same-sex relationships were made subject to the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act’s “aggravated homosexuality” and “aggravated homosexuality” being executed for both.
Rights organizations and international partners criticized the law and withdrew funding as a result of it becoming law.
According to the HRW report, the government has followed up the law with a persecution campaign that details widespread police abuse, including arbitrary arrests made based on perceived or actual sexual orientation or gender identity.
HRW discovered that the law has increased previously unheard forms of discrimination and abuse against LGBTQ people to unprecedented levels. The report also provided a detailed account of the law’s permitted rights violations and the devastating impact it has had on Uganda’s LGBTQ community, activists, allies, and their families.
The report notes that the Ugandan authorities used traditional and social media to spread hate and misinformation about LGBTQ people, which increased the number of attacks and harassment against them and LGBTQ rights groups in the months leading up to and following the law’s passage.
LGBT Ugandans have experienced a variety of abuses in the past two years as a result of the government’s willful deed, according to senior researcher for HRW, Oryem Nyeko.
The Ugandan government must immediately alter this environment, which allows for a wide range of human rights violations and puts countless Ugandans at risk of being abducted.
Steven Kabuye, an LGBTQ activist in Uganda, has been treated for stabbing by unknown people.
The interviewees reported a rise in threats sent to them.
People would keep calling you, saying, “We know where you stay,” they would continue. We are aware of your actions, one employee told HRW.
Another activist described how online threats got worse before three men attacked her and sexually assaulted a friend before breaking into her home in 2023.
She claimed to HRW that an assailant had insulted me and said, “You make me ashamed of being Ankole.” No one will search for you if we want to kill you. ” One of the main ethnic groups in Uganda is the Ankole.
Since the passage of the law, similar patterns have been reported by other Ugandan rights organizations.
Eight incidents of physical and sexual abuse, including corrective rape, were identified within the first 24 hours of its enactment, according to Kampala-based DefendDefenders.
A staff member told HRW, “The number of requests for assistance is overwhelming.”
According to the report, prominent LGBTQ organizations were also targeted by harassment of queer clients and group bans.
According to the electoral authority of Venezuela, the ruling coalition, led by President Nicolas Maduro, has maintained a significant majority in the country’s powerful National Assembly.
In response to what they described as fraudulent results of the presidential election in July 2024, several opposition groups called for a boycott of the Sunday legislative and gubernatorial elections. The 2024 election’s winner was determined to be Maduro.
The 285-member assembly elects members of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), who will continue to hold control of important institutions like the attorney general’s office and the supreme court.
What are the key details for parliamentary and regional elections:
What were the 2025 regional and legislative elections’ official results?
The PSUV and its allies received 82.68 percent of the votes cast the day before for seats in the National Assembly, according to preliminary results released by the National Electoral Council (CNE) on Monday.
According to the CNE, the ruling coalition also seized 23 of the state governor’s positions.
In a declaration released on state television, CNE rector Carlos Quintero claimed that an opposition alliance won 5.17 percent of the vote while a coalition that is close to the ruling socialist party won 6.25 percent.
The election results “proved the power of Chavismo,” the left-wing, populist political movement founded by his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, according to Maduro, who hailed them as a “victory of peace and stability.”
[Maxwell Briceno/Reuters] A man casts his ballot in Venezuela’s parliamentary elections on May 25, 2025 in Caracas, Venezuela.
What was chosen by voters?
The CNE was in charge of the election of 260 state legislators, 285 members of the unicameral national assembly, and all 24 governors, including the newly established governorship, which is supposed to have been established to administer Essequibo, a region that Venezuela and neighboring Guyana have long been at odds with.
Cojedes state’s governorship was won by opposition candidates, down from the four they won in 2021.
Why was the election in the disputous Essequibo region close to Guyana contentious?
In a colonial-era contentious dispute between Caracas and Guyana, the Venezuelan government changed the electoral boundaries to elect a governor and eight representatives for the oil-rich Essequibo region.
In Venezuela’s Bolivar state, which has 21, 403 voters, and is located along the Guanese border, the vote was carried out. For the legislative and regional elections taking place on Sunday, Caracas had created it specifically. In Georgetown’s 160, 000 km2 (61, 776 km2)-adjacent Essequibo territory, there were no polling stations.
Guyana has ruled the area for a long time, but Maduro repeated on Sunday that Caracas had threatened to annex it. Before the vote, the Guyanese government warned that voting in Venezuela’s election could lead to treason.
Despite the ongoing legal battle at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the Maduro government passed a law last year to create a new state in the disputed territory. Venezuelan actions come in spite of a court order from 2023 mandating Caracas to abstain from any change to the territory’s status quo.
The Venezuelan government has stated that it disapproves of the court’s authority in the matter.
What was the opposition’s response to the outcomes?
Up to 85% of eligible voters in some areas of the nation voted against the election, according to Maria Corina Machado, a figurehead of the opposition, in a post on X late on Sunday. She criticized the election as an “enormous farce that the regime is trying to stage a burying of its defeat” in the election of last year.
We saw an event that attempted to disguise itself as an election, but failed to deceive the country or the world, according to Edmundo Gonzalez, who is recognized by the United States and several other nations as the winner of the July 2024 presidential election.
“What the world saw today was a civic act of courage,” the statement read. In a post on X, he wrote, “A silent but powerful declaration that the desire for change, dignity, and a future remains intact.
During a rally against President Nicolas Maduro, a priest blesses Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.
Another opposition group, led by two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles and governor of Zulia state Manuel Rosales, urged people to cast ballots to stop the opposition from being given complete control of the state.
Rosales lost his governor’s seat, while Capriles was elected to the National Assembly.
What factors and characteristics influenced voter turnout?
The CNE estimates that 8.9 million people cast ballots, or roughly 42 percent of the 21 million eligible voters.
However, the country’s main opposition leaders had urged voters to boycott the election in protest of the presidential election held in July 2024.
What effects will these elections have on Venezuela’s political landscape?
The outcomes give Maduro a significant boost as he gains even more power as the ruling coalition, which currently has almost complete control over the democratic institutions, gains.
Omar Barboza, the executive secretary of the opposition’s Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), will step down in March, which will demoralize the opposition, which has been in disarray. One of the reasons for resigning from his position weeks before the elections was cited by Barboza as a lack of cohesion.
Teresa Bo, a journalist from Argentina, reported for Al Jazeera that Maduro faced a difficult task of challenging him with more forceful force during the campaign because there was a rift between the opposition and the boycott call.
She continued, noting that the majority of analysts “could not guarantee if the elections were free and fair.” She said, “They also spoke out about the lack of international observers.”
What will Maduro do after that?
Despite years of mismanagement and international sanctions, Maduro’s victory in recent elections comes despite the economy’s decline.
Venezuelan oil is currently being pumped by US President Donald Trump, potentially depriving Maduro’s administration of a crucial economic lifeline.
After Maduro agreed to work with the opposition to a democratic election, Joe Biden received a license to Chevron in 2022.
Five days after being detained by the Tanzanian police for ambiguous reasons, Agather Atuhaire, a Ugandan lawyer, was finally released from jail last week. At the border crossing between the two nations, she was unceremoniously dumped.
Although Atuhaire’s condition is still unknown, a statement from the organization she works for as well as a statement from Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi allege that she was tortured. After being dumped at the Kenya-Tanzania border the previous day, he himself displayed signs of physical abuse.
The ordeal of Atuhaire and Mwangi has been a painful reminder of how underdeveloped democracy has become in the area. With little opportunity for recovery, people who are organizing to fight against state excesses have been increasingly confronted with structural and physical abuse.
A small group of regional activists and political figures flew into Tanzania to show solidarity with Tundu Lissu, the opposition’s leader. Lissu is facing treason charges for allegedly making comments at a political rally, with the most serious being treason.
However, Lissu is not the only person facing reprisals for political behavior in the area. According to the same theory, organizing and leading opposition in the country’s neighboring Uganda amounts to treason, Kizza Besigye, the leader of the opposition, is facing the same charges.
The country is still bereft of the 2024 anti-finance bill protests in Kenya. Protesters and youth activists have evolved into the country’s unofficial political opposition in the absence of a well-organized political opposition, which is hampered by frenetic horse-trading and deal-making.
During the protests last year, which resulted in at least 82 deaths, the youth were the victims of political violence. Despite President William Ruto’s claim that the contrary, protesters were kidnapped and abducted after the demonstrations, and activist groups claimed that some people are still missing.
People in Burundi continue to live in fear of war with its expansionist neighbors and continue to live in the shadow of police excesses.
Several opposition figures who attempted to challenge President Paul Kagame were detained in Rwanda on various charges. The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s neighbor is perpetually at war with political crisis.
How did this situation arise, then? The simplest response is that we allowed ourselves to associate democracy with malice, and that those who hold the power benefited from that false belief. Real democracy requires round-the-clock vigilance, and building strong democratic systems is much more challenging than holding elections every four or five years.
Strong local government, transparent political parties, institutional accountability, and participation, all of which have been on the decline in the area in the last two decades, are necessary for a meaningful democracy.
Due to the capitulation of legislatures and the “naomba serekali” (“I am asking for the government”) approach to politics, power has remained firmly rooted in the executive.
Parliaments are empowered by a popular vote’s legitimacy, but they repeatedly veto the executive. Evidence of this  can be easily found in the region’s women’s office experience.
The issue begins within political parties, where candidates must kowtow to a kingpin in order to be allowed to appear on the ballot, as noted in a 2018 book, Where Women Are: Gender and the 2017 Kenyan General Election, which I co-edited. Those who don’t frequently miss competitive election cycles are excluded. Women’s participation in electoral politics has decreased as a result of the shrinking democratic space, with the exception of constitutional quotas.
In contrast, parties have developed the skill of managing gender perceptions as a diversion from actual change, reducing debates about democracy to regular voting. Therefore, Samia Suluhu’s presidency in Tanzania is not a sign of a democratic revival but rather of a political system that chose the least contestable candidate to allow Chama Cha Mapinduzi to continue as president. Similar to how well-represented women are in Rwanda’s parliament, the ruling party’s ability to pick candidates with lower oppositional biases is not in itself indicative of gender progress.
Once these candidates are smuggled into the legislature more dependent on their political ally than on the electorate as they are laundered through the political party system. Whether the kingpin is in the opposition or the government, this is the case.
Because their party kingpin has since struck a deal with Ruto and blind obeisance is the only guaranteed way to power in this system, opposition candidates like Edwin Sifuna, who vehemently defended the rights of protesters during the June 2024 protests, have become tongue-tied in Kenya in 2025.
Politicians are silenced in Tanzania due to arrests, detentions, and disappearances of state critics in Uganda and Tanzania. The end result is that elections turn into performances with little impact in the long run.
This is not a problem unique to East Africa, according to a quick analysis of global politics. Similar issues are arising in the United States, particularly as a result of careerist politicians’ evisceration of the Republican Party and the Tea Party Party.
However, the recent events demonstrate that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s unwavering and blind loyalty to the dictates of the state is a source of risk for East Africa. The current US administration aims to incorporate this trait into its operations.
The long-term solution to this situation is for ordinary people to become more engaged in localized democratic practices, elevating the standard of political behavior. This can be challenging when people are merely attempting to survive a hostile political and economic environment, but in the long run it opens up new avenues for civic engagement.
More people take more active roles in the governance of civic institutions like schools, hospitals, trade unions, cooperatives, neighborhood associations, and even sports and social clubs, making them more democratic in ways that can be immediately connected to their quality of life.
Elections are then the culmination of four or five years of regular democratic operations, not a separate process that hovers above the commons.
Additionally, East African legislators have the responsibility to find their voice and purpose. Their primary concern isn’t the development of political careers or political survival. Their mandate is to uphold the constitution’s integrity, rein in the excesses of the executive, and to defend the people who elected them.
Meanwhile, we as a people should follow the advice of Nigerian public intellectual Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem to “don’t agonize, organise” and work tirelessly to rebuild East Africa’s democracy.
Two days after promising to impose severe tariffs, US President Donald Trump has sincere opposition to starting a trade war with the European Union.
Following a call from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Trump announced on Sunday that he had agreed to extend trade negotiations with the EU to July 9. Trump announced on Friday that a 50% tariff on imports from the bloc would be imposed on June 1 as part of that agreement, and the US will also be prevented from doing so.
The announcement is the most recent change to US trade policy in a long line of events, and it will only add to the uncertainty that Trump’s erratic and unpredictable policy is putting on the world economy.
Trump claimed that Von der Leyen wants to start serious negotiations. “We had a very nice call,”
He told reporters, “She said we will quickly get together and see if we can work things out.”
The European Commission’s head said Trump had gotten a “good call” from her and that the EU was prepared to act quickly.
Backtracked
Trump gave the EU a 90-day window to begin trade negotiations in April, which were scheduled to end on July 9.
He had backtracked on Friday, saying he was completely uninterested in the transatlantic trade dispute.
The president remarked, “I’m not looking for a deal.” The agreement is set at 50%, according to the company.
He agreed with von der Leyen’s claim that the bloc is ready to negotiate but needs more time by Sunday, though.
She continued on X, stating that “Europe is ready to move forward with discussions quickly and decisively.” We would need the period until July 9 to reach a good deal, they say.
Maros Sefcovic, the top trade negotiator in the bloc, urged the US to show “mutual respect, not threats” on Friday.
With his April announcement threatening massive tariffs on several nations, Trump threw a wrench into the world’s financial markets.
The US president has, however, softened his stance in favor of negotiations in the wake of volatile markets, threats of retaliation, and global turmoil.
More than 50 people have been killed in the northern Gazan attacks, according to reports.
On Monday morning, the death toll from the overnight attacks was recorded. According to Palestinian Civil Defense officials, a school in Gaza City and a family home in Jabalia were two of the targets hit.
According to Civil Defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal, at least 33 people were killed in an attack on the Fahmi al-Jarjawi school in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City in the middle of the night, according to AFP news agency.
Bassal claimed that the school had been providing shelter to “hundreds” of people, noting that the victims were primarily women and children. He continued, “Dozens were hurt.”
The Israeli military claimed on Monday that “key terrorists” were staying at a Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad control center.
According to the report, “Numerous steps were taken to reduce the risk of harming civilians.”
Palestinians reportedly killed 33 people in Gaza City on May 26, 2025 in an Israeli airstrike against the Fahmi al-Jarjawi school.
A child wandering alone among the flames, a child wandering alone among the flames, and people trying to break windows on the outside were all captured in video footage that Al Jazeera broadcast.
19 members of the Abd Rabbo family were killed in a separate attack on a residence in the northern Gaza Strip, according to Bassal.
Six people were killed in a nearby tent camp in Gaza City, according to unconfirmed reports, according to unconfirmed reports.
targeted schools
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated last week that Israel would launch an intensified military campaign until it had total control over Gaza despite mounting international pressure that has prompted Israel to lift a blockade on aid supplies.
Attacks on civilian infrastructure, including schools, are prohibited under international humanitarian law. Throughout its 19-month conflict in Gaza, Israel has repeatedly bombed schools, most of which are now used as shelter for displaced people.
At al-Buraq School in Gaza City, at least 50 people were killed in bombings and artillery shellings in November 2023.
Despite its chief stepping aside because of concerns over its independence, an NGO supported by Israel and the US has announced that it will begin distributing aid to besieged Gaza.
Hours after its executive director Jake Wood resigned, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) announced in a statement on Monday that it would begin providing direct aid to the battered enclave.
By the end of the week, GHF, which has been contracted to distribute food, medicine, and other essential supplies to the area’s 1 million Palestinians, announced its goal of reaching out to them.
The NGO then stated that it intends to “scale quickly to serve the full population in the weeks to come.”
Aid organizations in Gaza have warned of widespread famine and numerous deaths from starvation, but reports suggest that the few aid deliveries that have entered the enclave have only recently reached Gaza’s 2.3 million people, which is below the threshold for Israel’s pledge to allow “minimal” aid deliveries.
The UN and other aid organizations have resisted working with GHF, warning that the conditions in which it will operate, including requiring Palestinians to gather at central aid locations, will put people at risk and thwart other aid efforts.
Wood made the announcement on Sunday, citing concerns over GHF’s independence.
He said in a statement that the organization couldn’t “agree to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon,” and that Israel should allow for more aid.
The GHF board stated in a statement that it was “disappointed” by the resignation but that it would continue to support Strip-wide aid efforts.
The US State Department’s office confirmed that the organization remained in support of the NGO.
On its way into the Gaza Strip, a truck carrying humanitarian aid crosses the Karen Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing point.
Wood’s departure comes as a result of growing criticism of GHF’s independence and operational structure.
According to The New York Times, the NGO, which claims to have been based in Geneva since February, was the result of “private meetings of like-minded officials, military officers, and business people with close ties to the Israeli government.”
Concerned by the GHF’s operations, which would force civilians to walk long distances to get aid and cross Israeli military lines, the UN and other major humanitarian organizations have expressed concerns that they could undermine existing relief efforts.
The GHF’s distribution plans, which Israel and the US claim are meant to thwart Hamas’ control of aid, could be used to further Israel’s plan to depopulate northern Gaza by concentrating aid in the south, raises the possibility.
Weapon of war
In Gaza, a worsening humanitarian catastrophe is the setting for the controversy surrounding the GHF.
1.95 million people in Gaza, or 93 percent of the population, are living in acute food insecurity or lack food, according to the most recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report.
Aid organizations have accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war and have described the situation as a human-caused famine.
Robert Patman, a professor of international relations at the University of Otago in New Zealand, claimed Wood’s resignation reflected the absence of backing from well-known humanitarian organizations for GHF.
It’s no secret that the majority of aid donors were hesitant to support this proposal, which is essentially a start-up, he said.
